


The New Guy

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore is an idiot, Harry is a good teacher, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Fix-It, Time Travel, Tom is morally gray, Tom is sassy in the privacy of his own thoughts, Tom just wants to protect the person he cares about, and also morally gay, because, because why the hell not, but definitely working towards that, puns, sharing dreams, which means destroying the Dursleys, who is always proud of his students no matter what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 19:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: Tom was just getting used to going through the boring routines of being a Hogwarts student when everything is changed up by the appearance of a new professor part way through the school year. A particularly attractive and mysterious professor who just wants to help Tom stay the way that he is. Between strange dreams and fancy spell work, Tom is going to have his work cut out for him in figuring out everything there is to know about the new guy.





	The New Guy

“Hey, Tom, have you heard the news? We’re getting a new professor.”

Feeling slightly irritated that he was apparently one of the last people to find out this fascinating tidbit, it took him a moment longer than usual to school his expression into his normal polite mask. “In the middle of the year? Why?”

The boy who’d whispered over to him, Leime, just shrugged. “No one really knows for sure, but Cat said that Professor Lumi hasn’t been seen around the school in a week, and all of her classes have been subbed by Professor Dumbledore. Some kids are saying that Lumi got knocked up, and has to leave to go marry the guy before she starts showing so that she doesn’t disgrace her family. What do you think?”

Tom thought that he had a lot better things to be doing than sitting around and gossiping about the going ons of the professors, but he couldn’t figure out a way to say that that wouldn’t come out sounding too snappish. Sometimes it just felt insufferable to be surrounded by all these fools who were usually too stupid to even know how to tie their own shoelaces without a step by step guide. He was saved from having to think of some clever retort that would both answer Leime’s question while also subtly insulting him by the fact that the office door at the top of the stairs in the front of the classroom swung open.

But instead of their usual defense against the dark arts professor, Merrythought, an unfamiliar young man began hurrying down the stairs. His robes were flying out around him, and his hair seemed to stick out in every direction. “I’m terribly sorry to be late!” he called out, and he looked like he almost tripped over his own foot, which would have led to a nasty spill.

Leime tugged on Tom’s sleeve, looking very excited by the stranger’s appearance. “That’s him! That’s the new guy! I guess Lumi was just out sick after all and it’s actually Merrythought who was replaced!”

Yes, thanks, like Tom hadn’t been able to figure that one out on his own. “I wonder why,” he said softly. 

Then the new professor reached the bottom of the stairs, and stood proudly at the front of the room, staring out at the class of mostly unresponsive students. It was a rather early morning class, and most of the students were still half asleep. From the look of the professor, the man had just woken up himself. 

As the professor looked around the room, his bright green eyes landed on Tom for just a moment longer than he’d looked at any of the other students for. Then he blinked, and the man was turning away to go up to the chalkboard. He picked up a piece of chalk and scrawled his name across the board in penmanship so horrid that Tom couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to say. Then he turned back to the room, with a goofy little grin on his face. “So for those of you who haven’t seen me around the school yet, I’m Professor H- Jamie Potter.” He seemed flustered for a moment, as though his own name had somehow tripped him up, before powering on. “I know that it’s a little strange to get a new professor this late into the year, but I hope to do my best as your teacher. Today we’ll focus on you guys catching me up so that I know where your previous professor left off with you. I’ve got a good feeling that we’re all going to work very well together for the remainder of this year, and I look forward to getting to know you all!” There was a long moment of silence, and then the man’s face flushed pink. “Right, I’m the professor, so it’s my job to do the talking,” he mumbled to himself. “Er, how about we go around the room and everyone can tell me their name and what they want to be when they grow up.”

This was the trivial sort of exercise that first years usually did, but Tom wasn’t going to be the one who got on the new professor’s bad side during their first class. When it was his turn, he stood up and offered the professor a polite smile. “My name is Tom Riddle, and I plan on being the defense against the dark arts teacher here at Hogwarts.” And then he sat down as though he hadn’t just challenged Potter’s job. It’s not like Tom was really interested in the position- he had his sights set on being Minister of Magic someday- but Potter was far too cheerful for this early in the morning, and he needed someone to bring him down a few levels.

Unfortunately, Potter didn’t seem to get that message, and he just gave Tom a big, genuine, grin. “That’s an excellent goal to have, Mr. Riddle! I’m sure that if you work hard and put your mind to it, you’ll have no problem getting what you want. This school would be honored to have you as a professor someday.” Even as the attention moved to the next person, Tom couldn’t help staying stuck on what Potter had said. He’d given a longer response than he had to any of the other students. Something strange was definitely going on. 

When Potter dismissed them all at the end of class, having accomplished practically nothing in that entire time, Tom waited until all of his classmates had filed out before he headed up to the front of the room, where the professor was sitting at his desk. Potter seemed entirely too absorbed by whatever parchment he was reading, so Tom cleared his throat to get the man’s attention.

Potter looked up, and from this close, Tom was struck by the thought of how pretty the older man was. And he couldn’t have even been that much older anyways, certainly less than a decade. And he’d set his glasses aside while reading, which only made his green eyes seem to sparkle even more. His skin looked perfectly smooth, as though he had been created by magic instead of born like a normal man. And strangely enough, through a gap in Potter’s bangs that hadn’t been there before, Tom was able to see a pale scar that looked almost like the motion it would take to cast the tabooed killing curse. 

It took Tom a moment to realize that he’d just been staring, and he internally cursed himself for looking so foolish. Instead of apologizing, he just began talking, hoping that Potter would forget about the previous moment. “Defense against the dark arts has always been one of my weakest subjects. I was hoping that perhaps you could give me some additional assistance before we move on to the new material?”

Instead of perking up like he had earlier, Potter leaned back in his seat, and there was a tired look on his face. “I don’t think that that’s really a good idea. Besides, I’m pretty sure that even now you’re better at this stuff than I am. I didn’t- I’m not here just because this is my dream job. I’m here because I want to help you.”

“But you just turned me down when I asked for help,” Tom point out while being purposely obtuse. Whatever it was that was going on here, Tom wanted to know everything. It had been odd enough to feel singled out during class, but the way that the professor didn’t even try to keep up the pretense when they were alone seemed altogether stranger.

Potter sighed, and reached up to rub a hand across his face before picking up his glasses and sliding them back on. Tom couldn’t help thinking that it was rather a shame to cover up such charming eyes. “Look, there’s no point in beating around the bush here. It’s not going to accomplish everything. We both know that you’re not an ordinary student. You’ve already killed at least three people, and you don’t have any plans of stopping. You want immortality and power in all the ways that no one should ever wish for.”

As Potter was speaking, Tom slowly slid his hand into the pocket of his robes so that he could clutch his wand. How the hell did Potter know all of this about him? There shouldn’t be anyone alive who knew even a single piece of that information. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, professor. I could never kill anyone.”

“The innocent act is pointless, Mr. Riddle, since I already know that everything I’m saying is fact.” The bubbly persona from earlier was completely gone, leaving behind only an exhausted young man. “To be perfectly frank, when I first arrived here, I thought that the answer would be to just kill you now, before you can change. But I don’t have it in me to kill anyone, not even you. And even if I could, you look so young and perfect right now compared to someday.”

Tom arched one eyebrow as he put together the clues he was being given. It sounded like something completely impossible, and yet he knew that in a world with magic, nothing should ever be considered truly impossible. “Are you saying that you’re from the future?”

Potter nodded once, not even attempting to deny it. “Yes. I’m not entirely sure how I wound up here, but I thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to end things before they begin. Before this happens,” he paused for a moment to gesture to the scar on his forehead. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell you very much about what the future holds, but I do know that I want to help you, Mr. Riddle. I want to help you see the error of your ways so that you can change into something better than what you are now. Something better than what you’ll become.”

Tom blinked once as he tried to take that all in. “So you’re saying that in the future I am as powerful as I’ve always wanted to be, and then you somehow sent yourself back in time?”

Potter shrugged. “I suppose that sums it up well enough. I just want to be able to change everything for the better. I must have been given this chance for a reason, and I can’t just give it up so that everything can play out exactly-”

Tom cut the man off by lunging forward and pressing a kiss against his mouth. Tom made sure that it wasn’t a delicate motion, and instead made sure it had teeth, tongue, and blood as he bit down on Potter’s lip particularly hard. He was shoved away a moment later, but he could already feel the triumph building up in him. 

Potter scrambled to his feet, looking at Tom with wide eyes. “Why the bloody hell did you do that?” Potter didn’t have the outraged look of someone who’d been kissed against his will, but instead the dazed look of someone who’d just had a life changing experience. 

“I, a man, just kissed you, another man without any permission and with lots of aggression, and you didn’t even try to draw your wand on me. I was making sure that you aren’t a threat, and clearly I’m right in my assessment of you. This means that I have more time to think about what I’m going to do with you before I come to a decision.”

Potter looked completely flustered, and he opened and shut his mouth a few times as he tried to think of an appropriate response to that insanity. “You can’t just- I’m your professor! That was so out of line!”

Tom grinned. “You already know about worse things I’ve done, but you’re going to get so caught up on a little kiss? Maybe I’ll have to keep you around just to find out how much fun I can get out of this,” he practically purred. 

Even as he spoke, Potter was shaking his head, and pacing back and forth behind his desk. “No way. No way. I can’t do this. I’m only fifteen. I’m way too young to be dealing with this.”

That definitely brought Tom to a pause. “Fifteen?”

Potter sighed once, and waved his wand. A few seconds later, he shrank down a few inches, his hair grew longer and more unruly, his limbs all seemed to shrink past the point of what was healthy, and he suddenly seemed to be drowning in his robes. “I couldn’t bloody well get a job looking like this.” And apparently his voice had lost a bit of depth. 

Tom knew that the grin on his face had to resemble that of the cheshire cat, but he couldn’t help it. He’d thought that the professor was pretty before, but now he was outright adorable. And it had been foolish of him to show off his secret to Tom, because now Tom had something against Potter to stop him from telling everyone about Tom’s own secrets. “I think you’ve just made my day, _professor_.” He put emphasis on the last word, and drew it out very slowly. “I think it would be only fair for me to call you Jamie though, right?”

For a moment, the other boy seemed confused, but then he sighed and shook his head. “That’s not actually my name. I thought that I should use a different one so that you wouldn’t be able to find me in the future if I failed to reform you, or whatever. But then I used my real last name anyways, so I guess it doesn’t really matter. My name is actually Harry.”

“Harry Potter,” Tom said out loud, just to practice the sound of it. “I think it fits you well. It almost sounds familiar to me, as though I’ve heard it in a dream before.”

Harry tilted his head thoughtfully. “Well, we do have a sort of connection. Maybe that would be why? I know that I’ve had dreams of you before.” At Tom’s lecherous look, he quickly hurried to add, “Not like that! You’re really ugly in the future anyways, and you tried to kill my friend’s dad!”

Surely that could be considered interesting information, though Tom wasn’t sure what exactly he could do with it. He didn’t even know how far from the future Harry was. It could be a few years, or it could be hundreds. He decided not to focus on that part. “So you’re definitely saying that I’m not ugly right now, right?”

Harry’s cheeks were flaming red. “Just leave me alone unless you change your mind about being a better person.” Then he lifted his wand arm again, presumably to put his adult disguise back on. 

Tom couldn’t help reaching up to snatch Harry’s wrist. “Do you really have to change back? You look so cute like this.” He could practically feel the heat coming from the blush on Harry’s face. He let go of the younger boy’s hand, and took a few steps back. “Oh, alright, I suppose I’ll leave you alone for now. But only because I don’t want to be too late to my next class. I look forward to getting to know you better, professor.” Then he hurried out of the classroom, though instead of heading to his next class, he headed to the bathroom instead. He had a problem to take care of, and he was far enough ahead in all of his classes that a little bit of hooky wouldn’t hurt him.

,,,

That night when Tom fell asleep, he was surprised to find himself swept into a dream. That didn’t happen to him very often, as he usually had nothing but a blank mind while he slept. But he decided to let the dream continue rather than just waking up, on the off chance that it turned out to be anything particularly pleasant.

He was in a long hallway that seemed to extend infinitely in either direction. At first he wasn’t sure which way to go, but then he realized that he could hear inaudible whispers from the left. He decided to go that way, because it had to at least be more interesting than the silent path. He walked for what felt like ages before he finally arrived at the end of the hallway, which led into a very little room. 

In fact, Tom wouldn’t even classify it as a room at all, if it weren’t for the small bed and shelves with clothes and various knick knacks on them. He couldn’t force himself to crawl onto the bed and close the door behind him, so instead he pulled his head out of the small space, and suddenly found that he was in a rather quant looking muggle home. Or at least, he assumed it was muggle, since he couldn’t sense any magic coming from anywhere around the house. He wondered why anyone with a house this nice would want to sleep in the little space tucked under the stairs.

As he looked around, Tom could feel a pair of eyes on him, and he realized that there was someone watching him from around the corner. He slowly strolled over, entering a nice little kitchen, and he saw Harry, even smaller than he had been in his natural form. Harry blinked up at him, and seemed surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?” His voice still had the delicate tone of a boy who hadn’t gone through puberty yet. “No one else is supposed to be here.”

Tom frowned as he looked closer at Harry. The boy was wearing dull clothes that seemed designed for someone three times his size, and his eyes constantly darted around the room as though he were afraid to make eye contact. There was tape wrapped around the bridge of his glasses, which seemed to be the only thing holding them together, and he seemed so tiny that he could easily get blown over by a gust of wind. “Do you remember me from earlier?”

Harry shook his head. “No. Have we met before?” He suddenly froze, and Tom heard the sound of crunching gravel outside. “You need to leave!” Harry hissed at him. “You have to go before you get in trouble!”

Tom frowned, and crouched down so that he could look Harry in the eyes. “How old are you, Harry?”

The boy looked down at his fingers for several seconds before finally holding up four of them. “That’s how many candles were on Dudley’s cake, and we’re the same,” he told Tom confidently.” Voices outside grew louder as they got closer, and Harry looked close to panicking. “You have to hide! Come on!” He dragged Tom back to the pathetic excuse for a room. Perhaps it was a little hideout for playing in? “You can hide in my room,” Harry told him. “I’ll make sure no one looks inside so you don’t get in trouble, okay?”

Before the door could be shut, trapping him in the claustrophobically small space, Tom reached out to grab Harry’s arm, which felt far too thin in his grasp. “I’m Tom. We just met today, and I know that I’m dreaming, but I don’t really understand my dream. Does that ever happen to you?”

Despite the urgency of the situation, Harry seemed willing to give the question a proper amount of thought before he nodded once. “One time I dreamed that I could fly. Another time, I dreamed about a reeeeally big snake.” He held his arms all the way out as if to demonstrate the snake’s size. “She didn’t like me though.”

Thinking about what Harry had said earlier, Tom couldn’t help asking, “Have you ever dreamed about someone who looked like me, but uglier?”

Before Harry could answer, the front door to the house opened, and Harry quickly shut the door to the tiny room. Tom pressed his ear against the door so that he’d be able to hear what was going on. There was a shrill woman’s voice. “What are you doing out of your room?”

“I was hungry,” Harry whispered so quietly that Tom almost couldn’t hear it. 

A gruff man responded to that. “What have we told you before, boy? You think that just because we weren’t home you had the right to wander around and spread your freakishness everywhere?” There was a pause, and then the sound of skin hitting skin, and Harry let out a muffled whimper. Tom didn’t even really know Harry at all, but he suddenly wanted nothing more than to tear those adults apart limb from limb. He shoved the door open, but when he tumbled out, he was back in the same hallway from before, and he was suddenly reminded that that had all just been a dream. Though perhaps there were some dreams that could be a dream and still be real as well?

Tom turned to head back down the hallway, and he saw another doorway. Curious, he stepped through it. This time he saw Harry, looking like his fifteen year old self. He was lazily sitting sideways in a chair that completely dwarfed him, his legs swinging from where they hung over one arm of the chair, and there was a book propped up on his knees. He peered up when Tom walked in, and then frowned. “And now you’re haunting my dreams again? This is just great.”

Tom crouched down in front of Harry, and pulled the book away so that Harry’s attention would be only on him. “You said that you couldn’t kill me when you saw what I looked like, right? Why did that change your mind? Is it because you really did recognize me from your dreams? Or even that you recognized me from your real life?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably on the seat, and swung his legs down, though they still dangled above the floor. “Why do you care?”

Tom tossed the book aside, not caring if he lost Harry’s place because it was just a dream anyways, and he put his hands down firmly on Harry’s knees so that the younger boy couldn’t get up and run away. “I think that there’s a reason you didn’t want to kill me as soon as you saw me. Just tell me.” His voice was about as gentle as he was capable of making it go.

Harry sighed, and his shoulders slumped down. “I had an imaginary friend when I was younger. I can’t remember the first time I saw him, but he was there, in and out of my life, all the way up until I was about ten. He wasn’t there often, but usually when I needed a friend the most, I could count on him to be there for me. And he looked just like you look now, maybe a year or two older at most. I never recognized you, though, because you look so different in the future. But his name was Tom, too. That kind of thing doesn’t seem like it could just be a coincidence.”

Tom clenched his jaw as he realized that the scene of Harry’s home hadn’t just been a dream, at least not for Harry. That had really happened. Even though Harry didn’t seem too bothered, Tom felt outraged on the boy’s behalf. “Tell me about your life, Harry. I can’t guarantee that I’ll want to change, but don’t I at least deserve to know? Please?”

It seemed to be that final ‘please’ that got Harry to just give in, and he nodded. “Fine. See me tomorrow after class.”

Tom snorted as he stood up. “Do you seriously expect me to respect you as a teacher when you’re younger than me and about as threatening as a teddy bear? A really skinny teddy bear?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I have it on a pretty good authority that I’m a good teacher. I’ve been teaching defense against the dark arts to my friends for a few months now. I’ve faced rogue dementors, possible serial killers, a lethal dragon, a basilisk, a possessed man. I know a thing or two about the subject.”

“We’ll see. I give you until the end of the week before you run out of appropriate teaching material.” He glanced over to see that the door to the hallway was open, and seemed to be inching closer to him. He looked back at Harry quickly. “Those muggles that you lived with- what happened to them?”

Harry furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean by that? Nothing’s happened to them. They were just fine the last time I checked.”

Tom narrowed his eyes. “Right.” He’d make sure that they weren’t just fine the next time that Harry checked. Then he let himself be pulled out through the door, and he opened his eyes a moment later, only to find himself lying in his bed in the Slytherin dorms. It was just about time to get up and go about his day anyways, so he did just that.

During breakfast in the Great Hall, he could see Harry sitting up at the table on the dais with the other professors. He was obviously wearing his adult disguise again, though personally, Tom thought that it was rather bold of Harry to assume that he’d ever really be that tall. As soon as breakfast was over, Tom blew off everyone who was trying to talk to him, and he practically ran to his first class of the day.

Which turned out to be a completely pointless move, since Harry didn’t get there until two minutes after class was supposed to start anyways, and he looked slightly out of breath, like he’d just run all the way there and still managed to be late. That kind of tardiness almost deserved a congratulations. 

At the beginning of class, Harry looked everyone over with a big grin. “Alright guys. Today I’m going to teach you about the ever-important patronus charm.” He had to roll back the sleeve of his robe when it got in his way, but then he was able to wave his wand and mutter the spell. A moment later, there was a life sized glowing blue stag standing in the middle of the room, trotting up and down the aisles like it was nothing. It was gone a moment later, and everyone began clapping.

Even though Tom wasn’t usually the sort to clap for a teacher’s presentation, since it was supposed to be their job to know the subject, he couldn’t help feeling particularly impressed in this case. Harry was only fifteen and he had already mastered a corporeal patronus? Tom had never heard of anything like it before. Except apparently he’d be in an entire classroom of prodigies, since Harry planned to teach them all how to do it. 

By the end of class, no one had yet gotten a corporeal shape, though several had achieved small blasts of blue light. Harry didn’t even seem remotely phased, and he cheered everyone on for their excellent work, and promised that they’d get it soon enough as long as they worked hard enough on it. 

When everyone was gone, Tom closed the classroom door and locked it, and then made his way over to where Harry was wiping down the chalkboard, using a bit of his sleeve since he’d apparently misplaced the actual eraser. “Alright, that was pretty good.”

Harry turned around, and he still had a smile, but it wasn’t as bright as the one from during class. “Thanks. I’m surprised that you didn’t get it right away, though. Everyone around here now and someday talk about what a magical genius you are.”

Tom clenched his teeth at the dig at his intelligence. “A patronus requires a happy memory to fuel it. I’m a bit short on those.”

Harry shrugged. “That’s alright. I’m sure you’ll figure out something eventually.”

Tom waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Or you can just help me create some of my own happy memories right now.” Harry laughed, and Tom realized that he really liked that noise. He glanced back towards the door, but it didn’t seem that anyone was intent on coming in, so he refocused his gaze on Harry. “Come on, it’s just us. Can’t you be yourself.”

He let out a long sigh, as though so much were being asked of him, but a few seconds later, his facade melted away to reveal his real, adorable, little self. “So you said you wanted to know about my life, huh?”

“It’s only fair, since you seem to already know everything about mine.”

The younger boy nodded, and sat down at his desk chair, leaving Tom to grab another chair to pull over. “There’s not really much to tell, to be honest. And I did say that I don’t think you should know too much of your own future. All you need to know about me is that my parents were killed when I was one, and then I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle and cousin, who aren’t very fond of magic. I didn’t even know magic was real until my eleventh birthday when Hagrid came to give me my letter and a cake. Let’s see, what else, what else. Oh! I have two best friends, Ron and Hermione. I’m in the Gryffindor house, as are the majority of my friends. My biggest enemy is Draco, and he’s a Slytherin. Though I don’t hate him as much as I used to because I’m starting to realize that there are a lot bigger things at stake. I have an owl named Hedwig, who I adore, and I have a professor named Snape who I hate. My godfather was arrested for murder and was put in Azkaban, but he managed to escape and is currently on the lam. I have a family friend who is a werewolf. My dad was an animagus. I get decent grades, mostly thanks to Hermione’s help. I once fought off a troll in the girls’ bathroom. I’ve held a philosopher’s stone. I’ve seen a phoenix be reborn. I once had all the bones in my arm removed. I have a friend who’s a house elf who I helped get freedom from his mean master. I’m the seeker for the Gryffindor quidditch team. I was a champion in the tri-wizard tournament last year,” an unhappy smile settled on his face at that last fact. “Technically I was the winner.” Then he leaned back in his seat. “And that’s pretty much it.”

Tom blinked a few times, and then shook his head. “No way. That cannot be all there is to you. Or am I really so important in the future that I’m somehow intertwined into every aspect of your life?” he joked. Harry shrugged, but didn’t deny that, and that immediately caught Tom’s attention. So he really would be great and powerful some day. And apparently ugly. “How did you get that scar?”

When Harry reached up to touch the scar, it seemed like the kind of subconscious motion that he made all the time. “The wizard who killed my parents tried to kill me too, but it didn’t work.”

Everything that Harry was saying was only filling Tom up with more questions, but he had the feeling that Harry just wasn’t going to give in to an interrogation. So he just sighed, and slouched forward in his seat. “This is so strange,” he muttered to himself. Then he cleared his throat, and looked up to meet Harry’s eyes. “Alright, so let’s just say for the sake of argument that I do want to be a better person. How exactly would you go about helping me achieve that?”

Harry shrugged. “I can’t really do anything. I was just hoping to change your mind about what path you take, and then I figured that you’d be able to do the rest of the work yourself. I can’t make you be a better person. But you can make the decision yourself to be a better person.”

Tom didn’t even see himself as a particularly bad person. He was powerful for sure, but that didn’t make him evil. Having aspirations for himself didn’t make him a bad person, did it? Clearly this wasn’t the kind of thing that he could just sit down for and make a choice one way or another. It was a lot more complicated of a situation than Harry was making it out to be.

Maybe Harry could sense Tom’s indecision, because he just offered an encouraging smile. “I’m sure that you’ll do the right thing when the time comes.”

“What makes you so sure of that when you already know that I didn’t do what you consider the ‘right thing’ the first time around?”

Harry shrugged. “I can just tell.” Tom wasn’t so sure about that, but something about Harry’s confidence was strangely infectious.

,,,

That night, when Tom realized that he was dreaming again, he felt strangely giddy. He followed the hallway to the end, and found himself back in the same house as before. He checked the tiny bedroom first, still pissed that that was actually Harry’s room. Then he searched the rest of the house before coming to the conclusion that no one was home. So what was the point of the dream, then?

But when he passed by the kitchen again, he heard a faint whispering noise, and he realized that the kitchen door was open. Tom walked through it, and found himself in a tidy backyard with a neatly maintained flower garden. There was a watering can sitting abandoned on the ground, and little Harry was crouched over what seemed to be a garden snake. There was some mud on Harry’s hands and knees? Was he the one in charge of taking care of the garden? But that was just ridiculous.

Tom was going to say something, but then he realized that the language Harry was using to whisper to the snake wasn’t common English. _“I’m really sorry about that, Mister.”_

The snake slithered up onto Harry’s hand. _“I do not mind an occasional bath,”_ it said in a prim little hiss. 

Tom couldn’t help feeling awed, as though he’d just discovered information that he wasn’t meant to have. “You can speak to snakes?” He hadn’t meant to ask out loud, but the question had just slipped out.

Harry dropped the snake and spun around, but immediately relaxed when he saw that it was just Tom. “Yeah. Dudley said it makes me sound like a freak, but I think that it’s pretty cool to be able to do that, don’t you?”

Tom grinned. _“I think that it’s very cool indeed.”_

Harry clapped his hands together, and had a wide grin on his face. “You can do it too! That’s so cool!” He scrambled to his feet, and rushed over to Tom. “Do you remember me? I’m Harry! You’re Tom!” 

The kid sounded so excited that Tom couldn’t help smiling at him. “Yeah, don’t worry, I remember you.” He looked around, and didn’t see any signs of anyone coming back soon, so he figured that he was safe this time. “You’re home alone, right?”

Harry frowned, and then nodded. “Yeah. I was just finishing my chores and I got distracted. Sorry.”

Everything he learned about Harry’s life only served to make Tom more and more angry. Not at Harry, of course. But at whoever had placed him with his relatives, and more importantly, at the relatives themselves. Before he could explain any of that, Tom’s view was suddenly blocked by the fifteen year old Harry, who had his hands on his hips and a stern look on his face. As soon as the other teenager appeared, the entire scene with little Harry disappeared, and they were standing in what looked like the Gryffindor common room.“This is completely unacceptable. You can’t just barge into someone else’s life.”

“But you’re the one who said that I was always there for you when you needed me, so shouldn’t you be glad to see that I’m here for you now? Besides, if I wasn’t here right now, then you wouldn’t have recognized me, and then you might have decided to just go through with killing me. So there’s a good reason for everything that happens.”

Apparently Harry didn’t agree with that, because he just narrowed his eyes and stomped forward until he was close enough to pinch Tom in the arm. Tom scowled, and put his hands on his own hips. He clenched his jaw, but didn’t say anything. Hopefully his own stern look would be enough to force an apology from the younger boy. 

When Harry didn’t show any signs of remorse, Tom suddenly jumped towards him and tackled him to the ground. At the very last second, he thought to put his hand on the back of Harry’s head so that it wouldn’t slam into the floor, even though it probably wouldn’t matter very much since this was just a dream anyways. “You might want to apologize for what you just did,” Tom warned the younger boy.

Harry grinned, and shook his head. “What did I do? I don’t remember doing anything wrong.”

“Alright, that’s it, you’re going down.” Tom quickly moved his hands so that they were wriggling against Harry’s stomach, and it turns out that the kid was just as ticklish as he appeared to be. He kept going until Harry was past the point of shrieking with laughter, and was instead making a strange silent noise as he gasped for breath, with tears dripping down his face. Tom finally granted mercy by pulling his hands away, though he couldn’t help thinking that Harry looked rather lovely with all those tears.

Harry scooted backwards, but stayed seated on the ground as he looked at Tom with a giddy wariness. After just a few seconds of intense scrutiny from those piercing green eyes, Tom felt like he was going to go crazy. He was grateful when Harry finally broke the silence. “You’re nothing like I thought you’d be.” After a long pause, he smiled. “I’m glad.”

Soon after that, Tom found himself waking up in his own bed again. He wondered if Harry would try to interfere with the next dream or not, and decided that he wouldn’t mind it either way. He wanted to spend time with little Harry, and learn all the things about him that teenage Harry would never divulge, but he also liked teenage Harry, who had a quiet maturity and intelligence about him and was a fascinating mystery to crack. 

Which is why he was so disappointed to show up to class the next day, only to find that the room was empty, and there was a note pinned to the door proclaiming that all defense against the dark arts classes were cancelled for the day. Tom entered the room anyways, and went right up to the office at the top of the stairs. He didn’t bother knocking, just used a quick charm to unlock it. It wasn’t very surprising to see the mattress resting in one corner of the cramped space, and a small pile of clothes next to it. Harry was probably sleeping in his office because he was afraid to be around the other adults too much, lest his spell work slip up. 

Not one to give up so easily, though, Tom headed out and began asking around. Apparently nobody had seen Professor Potter, and now that Tom thought about it, he couldn’t recall seeing the other boy at lunch. He changed his tactics and began asking after a boy that fit Harry’s real description. It took some time, but eventually someone mentioned seeing a kid who could easily be the professor’s child or sibling down by the lake.

Tom made his way there, and found Harry, looking like a teenager. He was sitting on a large, flat rock, and simply staring into the water. The boy would have looked peaceful if it weren’t for the overwhelming sadness showing on his face. Harry wore his heart on his sleeve like no one else Tom had ever known before. 

He sat down next to Harry, and looked over at the boy. “Not ready for all the responsibilities of being an adult yet after all, huh?”

Harry pulled his legs up so that he could wrap his arms around his knees. “It’s not that. I just really miss home.” He nodded once towards the lake. “Did you know that there are actual mermaids living there? And that if you eat gillyweed you’ll be able to breath underwater long enough to explore most of the lake?”

“I take it you know from experience?”

Harry nodded. “It was one of the tasks in the tournament. I had to save my best friend. But then one of the other champions messed up, and thought that her sister was going to die, so I went back and saved her too. And to think that that was probably the easiest task.” He sniffled once, and ducked his face down to hide tears. “I really miss home. I miss all of my friends, and I miss the crazy adventures that we go on, and I’m worried about some dreams that I had before I left, and I’m probably going to fall so far behind in all my classes that I’m never going to catch up. What if I never get to go home? What if I’m just stuck growing up and dying before any of my friends are even born? Everything here is so different. And I just want to go home.”

Tom wasn’t really sure what he could say to comfort the younger boy. At least he had a home to want to go back to. For Tom, Hogwarts was the closest to a home that he had, and he’d take it in any time period. Then again, based on what he knew of Harry’s family, maybe it was the same way for Harry. Maybe for him, home wasn’t the house he went back to over the summer, but the castle itself. Or maybe even the people inside of it. Tom couldn’t imagine ever having people so important to him that he’d cry at the thought of never seeing them again. But apparently Harry was exactly that kind of person. The kind who wound up in the past with no idea how it had happened, and his first thought was to try and make the world a better place by giving up on his own childhood and dreams of the future. The world just wasn’t a fair place. Someone like Harry didn’t deserve everything that had happened to him. 

Of course Tom was no expert in time travel, since he hadn’t even been aware until recently that it was a thing that really existed, but he was an expert at research, and he was determined to find a way to send Harry home. As lovely as the boy looked when he was crying, Tom couldn’t help feeling guilty, and wanting to be able to change that unhappiness into a big goofy grin. And there was one other thing he could do for Harry, too. He could make sure that even if Harry was stuck here forever, everything he’d given up wouldn’t be for nothing.

There was no doubt in Tom’s mind that this would be a difficult path to take, but he was determined to do so. Harry had already suffered enough, and he didn’t deserve everything that Tom was going to do to him someday. And besides, was there really anything in life so valuable that it was worth giving up his good looks for?

Tom jumped up to his feet, and then reached down to grab one of Harry’s arms so that he could yank him up too. He used his own sleeve to wipe away Harry’s tears, and then offered a small smile. “Alright, let’s go to the library. I’m going to do everything I possibly can to try and figure out how you got here so that we can figure out a way to get you back. And about what you said before…” he hesitated, knowing that once the words were out there, they would be pretty difficult to take back. “I don’t want to be the person who I’ll be in your ‘someday’. But I don’t want to suddenly change and be another naive idiot skipping around handing out flowers and singing about peace. I’m happy with myself just the way I am.”

Harry looked surprised by the declaration, which seemed slightly offensive in Tom’s opinion. Was it really so hard to believe that he didn’t want to become an insane megalomaniac with plans to rule the world? Alright, to be fair, that was exactly what he was as far as Harry knew. Though it was interesting that Harry had mentioned dying before his friends were born. That meant that he had to be from decent number of years in the future, which meant that Tom really had succeeded in finding immortality. But that wasn’t important at the moment.

He reached out to take both of Harry’s hands in his own. “I promise that I truly am happy the way that I am right now. I don’t want to add to all the pain and misery that you’ve already suffered. And believe me, this is a pain in the butt to be feeling all these things. I’d never really felt much at all before. And I know that I haven’t gone soft, because I’m not suddenly fond of everyone else. I guess you’re just the exception.”

Harry grinned, though the effect was slightly ruined by the drying tear tracks on his cheeks. “I usually am.” Then he laughed, as though he’d just told some kind of inside joke that only he would understand. “So you’re going to help me, and you’re going to be- well, not exactly a better person, but not a worse person either. It sounds to me like it was a good thing that I ended up here.”

Tom quickly glanced around, but saw that there were no other students wandering the grounds at the moment. Most of them were probably in their classes, or didn’t want to waste the precious few minutes in between classes by hanging around outside in the cold. Since there was no one around, Tom decided that it would be okay to lean forward and give Harry a long kiss. It was much more gentle than their first one, and when he finally pulled away, he smirked at the dazed look Harry wore. “Alright, I have to ask. In your ‘someday’, is that allowed?”

Harry tilted his head to think about it for a moment before he answered. “Kinda. A lot more than it is now, for sure. People still get attacked for their preferences, though. I remember the time my uncle made my cousin stop hanging out with one of his friends for being ‘one of those sort’.” From the tone of his voice, it was obvious that he was quoting something directly that his uncle had said. “It’s not like they can get married or anything, but for the most part, they can be together without too much fuss, as long as they don’t make a big deal of it. Why do you ask?”

Tom couldn’t keep the sly grin off of his face. “I was just thinking about the fact that there’s no one around here that I would cry to leave behind. And that I rather enjoy kissing you. Which means that if you’re going to head back to your future, the only way I’m going to be able to continue kissing you is to go back with you.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You barely even know me, and I don’t really know much about who you were before you became the you that I know. We’re basically complete strangers who just met a few days ago.”

“And yet there’s some kind of connection between us. You already told me that yourself. And there has to be a reason that I’ve been dreaming myself into your actual life from when you were younger. I don’t even know what kind of magic that is, but I know that it isn’t anything to be taken lightly.”

Even though Tom was baring his soul at the moment, Harry still looked doubtful. “But what if we do manage to find a way back, and my time hasn’t changed at all? What if you’re there with me, but you’re also running around and causing chaos and destruction?”

Tom shrugged. “Then I’ll spirit you away to a secret place where nothing will be able to hurt you, and no one but me will ever be able to find you.”

“Tooom,” Harry groaned.

He sighed. “Fine. If that turns out to be the case, then we’ll figure things out from there. I’d know that guy the best, so I’d probably have the best way of finding a way to defeat him. Don’t worry. It’ll all work out, okay? But first thing’s first- we need to figure out a way to actually get back.” He only let go of one of Harry’s hands, so that he could use the other to tug the boy towards the library.

After they walked in silence for a few minutes, Harry cleared his throat and spoke up. “Tom? I’m really glad that I found you here.”

Tom grinned to himself at those words. “Me too, Harry. Me too.”


End file.
